Blood Stigma
by Junipertree
Summary: SERIOUSLY FINISHED Even as Albel struggled to separate himself from his father, there was one lesson that he learned over and over again: without Glou, he was worthless, and weak. Albelcentric, childhood and pregame.
1. Kicking and Screaming

I've been dying to write this one for a while but I haven't had time... anyway, disclaimers and all. Squenix and them. Yeah.

I just looked over Albel's stats from Wikipedia...

**Sex:** Male - **Age:** 24 - **Height:** 6'1" - **Weight:** 141 lbs

The guy's as skinny as a rail! For his height - I hope his weight is _without_ the gauntlet. --;;

Anyway, the first chapter is mostly to introduce Glou, who never gets enough screentime in fanfiction (I think). You'l get more of Albel in chapter two.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter One: Kicking and Screaming**

If Albel had been the kind of person who talked about his childhood, he would have said that he had come into the world the way he planned to leave it – kicking and screaming. His father liked to say that Albel had been a 'loud and ugly baby'.

Albel's mother had died due to complications during birth, leaving the baby to a portly wet-nurse while his father was absent most of the time. Her own child had died and she loved Albel like her own – until Glou Nox decided to take exception to her presence in his suite.

He was very blunt: "You're not needed anymore."

Her lip trembled, but she was a stubborn woman. "He's only a baby! You can't be here to take care of him with your duties."

"He's _my_ son. I'll take care of him. He's long done breastfeeding, which was your only purpose here."

The nurse clutched young Albel in her lap, causing him to squirm uncomfortably in her grip. "He needs me!"

Glou strode over to her and firmly removed her grip from Albel's waist, letting him scramble from her lap to the floor. "You're not his mother, and you're not needed," he repeated. "Now get out."

Tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, she stormed out of the room, only stopping at the door to say the last word: "He'll be crying for me come nightfall, and I'll just be waiting for you to take me back."

That night – and every night that week - the nurse's prophecy came to fruition as Albel awoke at night, crying and demanding the presence of his nurse. After the first night of attempting to calm down Albel's hysterics, Glou began to regret his rather impulsive decision to raise the boy on his own. He began to sleep on the floor in Albel's room so as to minimize the number of toes he stubbed in the dark travelling to his toddler son's room. Glou learned through sticky experience the fine art of diaper changing and porridge-making, as well as how to clean said porridge off the walls after Albel threw the bowl across the room.

And there was _also_ the fact that Albel's nurse had been quite right – Glou _didn't_ have the time to raise a little boy. There was the war, and his duties as captain of the Dragon Brigade... eventually he came to the conclusion that he should just take the boy out on the field with him.

"You're insane," His young second-in-command, Vox, was only one of many to voice this sentiment.

"Watch your tongue, Vox," Glou' eyes narrowed. "I can't leave him at the castle alone. Why don't _you_ think of a better solution?"

Vox thought that perhaps Glou ought to swallow his pride, call up the wet-nurse again and dump the baby on her, but he wasn't about to say that to his commanding officer. "Sorry for my impudence, sir."

"Hmph."

And so it was that little Albel spent the majority of his toddler years crawling around military tents, sitting under the table during strategy meetings, and being handled by awkward Dragon Brigade soldiers who had been threatened with graphic violence and death if anything happened to 'The Baby'.

More often than not, Albel ended up with Woltar, a good friend of his father's and captain of the Storm Brigade. As he was getting on in years, Woltar spent more time behind the strategy table than on the back of his steed and was often on baby duty. Woltar was also the only person beside Glou's own subordinates (who _had_ to do whatever their Captain said) who could be pressured into babysitting.

After Albel reached four or so, Glou decided that he could re-direct some of Albel's seemingly exhaustive supply of energy into swordplay. Giving Albel a stick that was too small to be called a wooden sword, Glou showed his son three basic swings and told him to repeat them. Albel's response?

"I don't wanna."

Glou sighed, brow furrowing with the onset of what would quickly become maddening frustration. "Just do it."

"What do I get?" Albel stuck his fingers in his mouth.

_Only four years old and already asking for bribes._ "You don't _get _anything – you just do it before I take that stick to your backside."

"You can't do that. Uncle Woltar said it's bad."

Glou's eyebrow twitched. "Woltar is a mouldy old dragon fart. And since when did Woltar become 'Uncle'?"

Albel just gazed up with as innocent a glance as he could muster.

After much cajoling, threats, and the eventual bribe of a ride on his dragon, Glou got Albel to promise he'd practice every day.

More exhausted from his session with Albel than he usually was after a heated battle, Glou made sure Albel followed through with his training before leaving the practice grounds to go speak with Woltar.

oooo

Eventually Albel became old enough that Glou felt comfortable leaving him at Airyglyph castle for extended periods of time. He usually left his son with a group of other young boys – mostly children of other knights and some of the few remaining aristocrats – that were training under an old crippled soldier who worked at the castle.

Albel was the youngest of the group and didn't get along with the other children – to put it mildly. While knowing how to insult someone's mother five different ways was certainly a very interesting skill (growing up around soldiers did have its benefits), it wasn't necessarily the wisest thing to exercise while surrounded by a number of children who were all bigger than you (not to mention very fond of their mothers). Squabbles with other children typically ended up with him sporting more than a few bruises as badges of his inability to keep his mouth shut.

Albel's second weapon proved his most effective in the battle of 'Albel vs. Everybody Else' – 'My daddy is captain of the Dragon Brigade'. Besides impressing his peers, it also intimidated their parents into telling their children not to pick on the son of Glou Nox.

The result of all this was quite simple: By the time Albel was ten, nobody in the castle under the age of thirty could stand him.

xxxxxx

Junipertree did her research. I looked up all of my baby development information. Albel would have been nearly three when Glou gave the wet-nurse the boot. I could give scads of details on the stuff I looked up, but I'm quite sure that nobody's interested. :P

And no, I don't think four is too young to learn the sword – my violin teacher took students no younger than four, and violin requires more fine-motor skills than swordplay. That's my logic, anyway.


	2. Pressed Down

Thanks to Shima Ame, Lara-Ruin, Lucrecia LeVrai, ShadowShapeShifter, and Talyafera for their reviews! You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :3

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter Two: Pressed Down**

Glou let the thin leather thong soak for a minute in the lukewarm basin of water by the fireplace before wrapping it around his hair for about a half-foot to tie it back in a low ponytail. Wearing a gold-embroidered tunic that he didn't enjoy but was unfortunately used to wearing, he was set to go to the formal audience with the king. It was mostly for show – when Glou wanted to speak with the king on serious matters, neither of them would concern themselves with fancy dress.

However, before Glou could set his foot out the door, he found himself prevented by a small but stubborn figure blocking his path, asking him, "Where are you going?"

Glou peered down to see his son looking petulant, scowling with obvious displeasure at his father's depature. From Albel's standpoint, Glou was in a constant state of either coming or going.

"I'm going to an audience with the king. It's boring; you don't want to go."

As soon as the words had come out of Glou's mouth, he realized that he had said exactly the wrong thing. So of course Albel said exactly what any ten-year-old boy would say:

"I want to go with you."

Glou furrowed his brow, poking at his forehead to press at the spot between his eyes. "You're going to hate it, whine about it, and then complain for the rest of the night."

"I won't!" Albel insisted. "I've never been to an audience. I'm going!"

Resigned to an evening of nothing less than torture, Glou stormed out of the chamber, Albel trotting behind him. The ponytail tied just like his father's bounced happily on his back.

As predicted, the evening was _incredibly _boring. A long list of petitions from the common folk and ambassadors from distant provinces made up the bulk of the audience. Albel, too stubborn to whine so soon after he had insisted he come, eventually got up and left discreetly. Glou, busy reasoning with an envoy from a state Albel had not caught the name of, did not notice his son's departure.

Shortly after shutting the side door to the audience chamber, Albel noticed a group of boys about his own age gathered down the hallway, circled around something in the middle of the floor. They were the same boys that he practiced weaponswork with on a daily basis.

Not really interested in them or their hobbies but unwilling to alter his course to avoid the blockage in the hall, Albel strode towards the huddle of boys. As he got closer he noticed that what they were crouched down, inspecting seemed to be a freshly dead rat, not yet dotted with maggots but attracting a short line of ants (with promise of more to come). The boys had it turned on its back and were poking at it with their fingers and booted toes.

"Gross." Albel turned up his nose as he tried to pass them. He was prevented when one of the boys stood up.

"Where do you think you're going?" The boy demanded. He was the oldest of the lot, around fourteen, and a leader of sorts. To say that Albel didn't like him would be redundant – he didn't like any of them. Albel was rather impartial in his disdain for the general populace.

"None of your business."

The boy smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "That was rather rude. Is that any way to speak to your elders?"

The other boys' attention was fully turned to Albel. He could see that they wouldn't do anything against their leader – none of them had enough guts. "Screw off." Albel tried to push his way through, but was prevented once again.

Before Albel could blink, his feet were yanked out from underneath him and he was on his stomach, cheek pressed into the floor by a dirty-booted foot.

"I really don't think it's a good idea to speak to me like that."

Albel tried to raise his hands to pry the foot off his head, but found that all four of his limbs were being pinned down. He struggled, but he was no match for the strength of five boys. "Scum," he spat. "So weak you need five to take one down."

"Weak?" The boot wa removed from his head, only to be replaced by a hand pulling his head up by the hair. "I don't think you're in any position to debate who has the power in this situation."

Albel winced, but met the other boy's gaze evenly. "My father –"

"Your _father_ isn't here, and neither is our meddling armsmaster. I think it's about time you got dealt what's coming to you." Albel said nothing in reply, so the boy continued. "We're sick of sucking up to you because your daddy's a hero. You keep preaching like your blood makes you better than us. Well, newsflash for you – it doesn't."

He released Albel's hair and stood up, kicking Albel in the face. Albel heard a crunch that he knew was a broken nose. He cried out, and the other boy smiled, kneeling down to grasp Albel's hair once again. "It doesn't matter how strong your father is – you're just a spoileed brat."

The boy reached behind him into the back of his belt, pulling out a knife the length of his hand. It was then that Albel really began to realize what kind of position he was in. As the knife was brought closer to his face he began to sweat and tremble, finally clamping his eyes shut in terror, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes. _Please don't please don't please don't please don't –_

The hand in his hair slid back to grasp his ponytail, and in a single fluid motion the knife slid over his scalp, slicing off his hair at the base. The leather thong that had tied his hair fell to the floor. When Albel opened his eyes in suprise, the other boy stood up again, laughing. "You actually thought I'd kill you? What a pussy. You're just like a girl."

Albel's face contorted into an expression of rage, but he could do nothing.

His captor only laughed. "How weak."

As Albel's eyes clouded over in rage, all he could see in front of him was the dead rat that the boys had been playing with on the floor. Ants were swarming over it now, and he could see a single fly landing on the rat's festering eye. Soon enough the rat would be crawling with maggots.

"What are you doing?" A yell came from down the hallway, behind Albel. He choked – he knew who it was.

The boys, discovered, fled in the opposite direction, Albel scrambled to his feet, facing away from his rescuer.

"Albel! Are you all right? What happened?" The man rushed towards Albel.

Albel couldn't turn around to face his father. He could only grip his arms with his hands, nails digging into flesh, look at the floor, and pretend he wasn't crying.

Glou spun his son to face him and forced Albel's chin up. With an expression of concern on his face he said, "This'll hurt –" and pressed Albel's nose between the palms of his hands, snapping the nose back into place, not without another cry from Albel.

While Albel was still dizzy from the pain, Glou got a goot look at his son's face, streaked with tears and dirt. "What happened?" He repeated. "And your hair –"

Albel's eyes widened and he suddenly shook off his father, drawing back his arm to punch his father in the stomach. "Get away from me!" He shoved past and ran down the hallway.

Glou, not even slighty winded, yelled after the fleeing figure, but did not move. He looked down to notice a severed ponytail at his feet, a leather thong pooling loosely around it.


	3. Difference

I have now discovered the joys of spellcheck. My old word processor's spellcheck never worked, so I had to go over everything manually! I never caught all the typos. But now it's all good.

The song 'Beauty is Within Us' from the Ghost in the Shell StandAlone Complex OST must be listened to. The lyrics are simply beautiful. And emo. I was writing this chapter with that song on loop.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 3: Difference**

As the country began to slide from fall into winter, one of the most common pastimes in the Kingdom of Airyglyph was to go to a nicely heated bar and drink hot rum, cider, and any other alcoholic drink that might suit your fancy. Glou Nox was currently practicing said tradition with Woltar, sighing into his steaming mug and continuing to shower his laments upon the semi-sympathetic ears of his good friend.

"...And I get that he's angry – of course he's angry – but why has he been taking it all out on me? I just want to take care of my only goddamned son."

Woltar, who had heard it all about three times already, sighed. "He's not angry with you. He's just taking it out on you because you're the only available outlet. He can't well go back and fight the other boys – he would only get beaten again."

"But he's made it like his personal mission to ignore everything I say or advise, from 'eat your vegetables' to 'your guard is held too far left.' I could do with a little respect." Glou slammed the counter with his fist, rattling a row of empty mugs.

"Shocking." Woltar rolled his eyes. "He's an adolescent boy."

"He's ten! He's not supposed to rebel for at least three more years!"

"Details."

"All right." After a particularly heady swig, Glou set his mug onto the table. "It's got him practicing more. He'd taking his sword work _seriously_ for once. And more the power to him! But there's no _way_ that it's a good idea to be advising your ten-year-old son to go take violent revenge against his aggressors is healthy parenting."

"Healthy parenting? You make me laugh, Nox. You've been training your son since the age of four so he can go out onto a bloody and chaotic battlefield and slaughter as many men as possible before he dies and you're worried about a little schoolyard retribution? Be realistic." Woltar eyed his friend as seriously as one could after imbibing as much alcohol as they both had.

"Fine, fine. Let him get strong enough to bully the bullies. I'm still going to knock a bit of sense into him. A boy's got to listen to his father when it comes to fighting, and Albel's as green as the fresh spring grass."

Woltar's eyebrows came together, furrowing in uncertainty. "All you can do is prove that you can beat him around the training hall, and he already knows that. It's not that he doesn't respect you, it's that he now sees you as a rival. He doesn't want to depend on you anymore."

"What the hell? You're not making any sense." Glou flung an arm back to emphasize, nearly whacking the barmaid in the face.

"I'm not making sense because you're drunk. If you remember anything that I said in the morning, remember this: A little humiliation goes a long way. Young Albel learned that lesson the hard way, and is reaping the results."

Glou snorted into his now-empty mug, slumping onto the table. "You're too old, Woltar. Any bullshit you spew out sounds like proverbial wisdom when you've got gray hair."

"And you, my friend, have had enough cider. I don't need gray hair to see that." Woltar stood up and patted Glou's shoulder amicably. "Time to go, Captain Nox."

xxxxxxx

Albel's routine had never been complex or filled with much else aside from a practice dummy and a wooden sword, but recently he'd been seeing much more of his good friend the straw man. He always woke later than his father, but every morning he would make his way down to the training grounds to work off his usual morning temper outside. He would come in later to eat, and then go out again for most of the day. He'd come back for dinner, and spend the evening inside by the fireplace, away from the cold.

As the snow began to pile up outside the castle, the only thing that changed in Albel's routine was the length of time it took to go from the grounds and back – instead of jogging, he began to pull his legs through heavy drifts of snow to reach the cleared-away areas.

His father seemed pleased by Albel's newfound motivation, but not so much by Albel's attitude. Though Glou had made a routine of tutoring Albel in sword work, Albel seemed adamant in his refusal to learn anything at all from his father. Glou lost his temper over this more than once, giving Albel a few sharp thwacks with a practice sword for his son's insolence. These occasions only served to make Albel even more petulant, if anything.

After nearly a month of Albel's stubborn yet paradoxical attempt to learn nothing yet become stronger, Glou gave his son an ultimatum.

"If you won't stop being such a damned fool, then don't bother even trying to use a sword. You can't teach yourself and you can't succeed through sheer stubbornness. If you want to become stronger than listen to what I have to teach you! Otherwise, you might as well just give up now."

Albel finally caved, if grudgingly. He'd take his father's lessoning, though not without more than a little lip, earning him more than a few thwacks.

The results were dramatic. Albel's proficiency with the sword increased more in the next year than it had for the past four. His greatest limitation was in his small stature – others his age towered over him, much to his chagrin. Glou waved off his son's worries quite casually. "You'll shoot up later, don't worry about it."

As Albel's attitude began to mellow out again, Glou began to think that his son had forgotten his previous vendetta. One couldn't expect a child to have the longest attention span, anyways.

Glou later regretted not realizing that just because you didn't see something, that didn't mean that it wasn't bubbling just below the surface.


	4. Retribution

I wuv Franz Ferdinand. Thank you soo much to my reviewers!

Miss Nox: It's very much a 'why Albel is this way' kind of fic. I seriously doubt Albel's personality did a drastic 180 after a single event.

Malice Mizer's 'Illuminati' is a great song to inspire sadism. Watch the PV. It's creeepy.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 4: Retribution**

Though Albel certainly had no love of the lessons he received from the castle armsmaster with the other boys, he recognized – grudgingly – that his father simply did not have the time to train him every day. He put up with the snide remarks and thinly veiled scorn from the other boys with an uncharacteristic silence. After months of eliciting little to no reaction from Albel, the others tired of their previous games and for the most part left the young boy alone.

Airyglyph castle's practice room was of medium size, floored with wooden boards and with one wall covered in expensive glass mirrors so students could watch their own movements. Racks of weapons, swords, axes, knives, and a range of pole arms – the bows were all outside – were lined against the opposite wall. Smokeless lamps were set in all four corners of the room, illuminating even in the dead of winter.

Sometimes the armsmaster would leave his pupils to practice on their own while he left to run some errand or another. It was one of those times that the other boys, having practiced what they deemed to be long enough, decided to turn their attention to other pursuits.

Albel was practicing a set of basic exercises that he had mastered long ago, deliberately making mistakes and setting himself off-balance. He was quite aware that the oldest boy was eying him from where he lazed casually, just itching to start a fight and looking for any possible excuse. Albel would give him one.

"You've been staring at me for the past five minutes." Albel smirked. "Sorry, I don't swing that way."

Anger briefly crossed the other boy's face before he hurled a taunt of his own back at Albel. "I was just amazed at how much you suck, even after all those special lessons from daddy."

"You wanna try me?"

"Please. I'd be wasting my time fighting a girl like you."

Albel began to walk towards the other boy, wooden sword swinging confidently in his hand. He gripped the weapon tighter in anticipation. "Then have your _friends_ help you. You're going to need them."

The other boy was really angry now. Getting to his feet with wooden practice sword in hand, he wasted no time in falling into an offensive stance and taking the first swing against Albel.

The tip of the boy's sword just swiped past Albel's cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. Albel touched the wound with a finger and brought the blood to his lips.

In a single movement Albel had struck and the other boy was flung to the ground, hit full in the chest and thrown backwards with a force that belied Albel's small stature.

Another boy seemed to take this move as a threat and rushed Albel from behind. Not even turning around, Albel side-stepped the boy and pulled him around by the arm and shoulder, sending him to the floorboards as well. Nobody else moved.

The first boy had now risen to his knees, shaking, and propped himself up with his sword. Albel stepped over the second boy, still groaning on the floor, and strode towards his original opponent. Raising his sword once again, he struck the boy in the cleft between neck and shoulder, sending him face-first to the floor once again.

Albel could feel his heart beating in his chest all the way up his throat to his head with excitement. Everyone else was frozen, shocked by the younger boy's unexpected victory.

The boy had rolled over to his side where he lay, panting. "You scum –"

Albel struck again, wood slapping on the cloth of the boy's loose shirt to the skin, this time on the boy's abdomen, forcing him curl even tighter on the floor in pain. "It's different this time, isn't it?" Albel's hands rose to strike again and again, the other boy now crying out in pain. "Come on, get up!"

Albel let up for a moment, panting, eyes too bright. The boy was now whimpering in pain and fear. Nobody moved.

Albel took a few steps over to the side. A boy quickly moved out of his way. Albel reached to one of the racks on the wall and pulled out a slim new practice sword. A metal one.

Unsheathing the sword as he walked, Albel taunted his floored opponent. "Don't tell me you've never practiced with steel before. You know, I do it _every_ day. I guess I'll just have to show you _how it's done._"

The sword rose and fell, the sharp sound of cracking ribs loud to every pair of ears in the room. The boy screamed. Albel didn't stop. He raised the sword –

– and was prevented, the blade grasped firmly in the fist of a man standing behind him. The blade was wrenched from Albel's grasp and flung across the room, clattering on the polished wood. Hands smarting, Albel spun around to meet the enraged visage of his father.

Wordless, Glou backhanded his son across the cheek, flooring him with a dull _thwack_. Albel lay motionless on the ground for a moment before levering himself into a sitting position, hand against his stinging cheek. He kept his gaze on the floor.

Glou didn't even have to say a thing – one look from him and every other boy in the room suddenly found an excuse to leave immediately. The only ones remaining were Albel, Glou, and the boy, still lying curled loosely on the floor.

"Look." Glou pointed at the other boy. Albel noticed that he was completely unmoving, and probably unconscious.

"That –" Glou began, "Is not what a sword is for."

Albel rose shakily to his feet, angry. "Then what is it for? For what reason have I been training all this time, if not to subdue my enemies!"

Glou closed his eyes in disgust. "If you don't know the answer to that, then you're even more of a child than I thought." He pushed Albel aside to kneel by the boy on the floor, carefully gathering him into his arms.

"Wait!" Albel grabbed the back of his father's jacket in his fist. "How can you be like that? You know what he did to me!"

"And you nearly killed him. We both know that revenge had nothing to do with it." Glou stood up, carrying the boy. "There was no anger on your sword."

Albel just barely managed to restrain the urge to stomp his feet, knowing it would only make him seem more childish. "So what? He was nothing more than dirt anyway! I wouldn't care at all if he died!"

"I know." This time, Glou only seemed sad.

Albel watched his father leave, biting his lip so he wouldn't cry.

He tasted blood, and swallowed it.


	5. Separate

Thanks again to my reviewers! You're going to give me a head full of hot air...

Sorry my stuff is so damned short. I have a very short attention span. I blame it on video games. This chapter is about a hundred words longer than the last one. Baby steps, you know.

I have a sort of vision of the bond between soldiers in the Dragon Brigade and their air dragons that's halfway between Anne McCaffrey and Jane Yolen, only in a more muted way. That might make sense to you if you read too much.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 5: Separate**

Over the next year or so one could see a sort of tension building in Albel's thin frame, a coil twisted tighter and tighter that would spring loose at certain intervals, only to wind itself up again.

He would often be seen on the training grounds, practicing against older boys and grown men – if one could call it practicing. Quickly gaining a reputation for viciousness in matches, Albel treated his opponents as enemies and would not pull his blows in the least.

Albel's tense, low-slung posture seemed odd and threw his opponents off-balance. Expecting the jerky movements of an amateur, they would be quickly and brutally subdued by dodges, strikes, and slashes that were no less than serpentine.

Albel would pick an opponent carefully with a seemingly casual taunt, toying with them, making enough noise and taking the time to draw a crowd. Albel would even let him believe that he stood a chance at winning – until in a quick succession of strikes that came too fast to be dodged, his opponent would find himself stepping slowly backwards, one step after another. With a final blow that sent his enemy sprawling, Albel would crouch down over him, sword in hand and at his throat. This was the part that he loved the most.

Albel would never forget to take a souvenir of his victory. Slicing his sword across the cheek of his opponent more than deep enough to draw blood, he would lower his mouth to his opponents cheek where he could feel the panicked breath escaping from the other man's lips, his own heart pounding as he tasted the blood of victory. Albel would stand up then, and, for the final blow, he would spit his enemy's own blood into the pathetic man's face.

That was the best part. Albel never tired of it.

Glou quickly got wind of his son's antics but made no move to prevent Albel. Albel took this as meaning that Glou had given up on trying to reform his son.

Glou did not, however, fail to mention to Albel one important piece of information. "All the strongest men are on the front lines. Don't for a moment believe that the scraps you see here are the best Airyglyph has to offer."

Albel only grinned. "I can't wait."

"They all say that, before their first battle." Glou smirked. "You're still as green as the spring grass. Don't believe for a minute that you know what real battle is like."

Albel's only reply was a cocky snort. He knew he could handle himself. He turned to leave.

Glou placed a gloved hand on his son's shoulder, preventing him. "I'm dead serious, Albel. If you think that a simple one-on-one practice match with rookies and old men is anything like a battle then you're wrong. Even the most experienced veteran can easily be killed in the chaos of a battlefield. If you go in thinking that you're invincible _you will die._ Do you hear me?"

Chagrined, Albel held his tongue.

"That's better." Glou casually gave his son's shoulder a parting slap and left to attend to his duties.

xxx

The sky above the capitol of Airyglyph was never entirely clear. Even when the heavy clouds had cleared during the coldest nights of winter or the hottest days of summer, the sky was always dotted with the circling black dots of dragons flying overhead. Tame ones mingled with wild, barking and keening overhead in melodies that made sense only amongst themselves. Airyglyph might have been short on food and anemities, but they sure as hell had plenty of dragons.

This particular day was one of those clear ones, during one of the few times of the year that Airyglyph was actually hot. Dragons swooped and dived overhead, enjoying the heat that they could feel outside of lava-warmed caves or indoor fireplaces. Not far off, reserve and recovering soldiers from all three brigades practiced in the hot sun, no doubt melting in their padded practice leathers. Dragon brigade soldiers practiced on and of their mounts, not for a second allowing their footwork to grow weak.

Every member of the dragon brigade owned a dragon – though 'owned' was not really an appropriate word. It seemed more like the dragons were temporarily allowing themselves to be ridden. More often than not it was the rider who served the dragon's needs – feeding, bathing, and grooming it to the dragon's satisfaction.

Albel knew that his father spent a lot of time in the company of his dragon, but the only times Albel saw it was when Glou was getting on or off it, leaving or coming back. He had ridden on the dragon a few times when he was small, but had had little interest in it after the initial novelty of flying had worn off.

And so it was rather odd to see his father in the courtyard, standing before his dragon, scratching his dragon under the chin with one hand and petting behind its ear ridges with another. He was smiling in a way that Albel had never seen him before. The dragon cocked its head and patted a clawed foot on the ground and Glou laughed as if they were sharing a private joke.

Albel felt like an intruder on a private scene, lurking in the background. He scuffed his foot on the straw-strewn cobblestone walk, waiting for his father to notice him.

"Albel!" Glou turned around, still smiling cheerfully. "We were just talking about you."

Albel's eyes focused steadily on the ground, sullen. "I thought that only the King's dragon could talk."

"It's not talking, precisely," Glou shrugged. "It's more like I can just get the gist of what he means. It's hard to explain."

"I guess." Albel continued scuffing at the dirt with his toe.

"You'll understand what I mean in time." Glou gave the dragon's nose a final pat and the dragon's haunches clenched, wings spreading in a gust of wind to take off and soar over their heads.

"Whatever." Albel still didn't like the idea of not being in on whatever his father was so happy about.

"Don't be like that. There's no need to be such a baby because you're jealous of a dragon," Glou teased.

Albel crossed his arms, annoyed. "I'm not jealous of a dragon. It can't be all that great to have one anyway."

"But it is. It's... a deep, physical connection that can't be severed. It's incredibly grounding, and not like anything else. You'll get to feel that too, when you're old enough."

"I don't need that kind of thing. I just need to be able to fight."

Glou grinned wryly. "Ah, for the simple days of youth. You know, there's more to being a warrior than physical strength."

Albel looked vaguely disgusted. "Dad, you're starting to sound like Woltar. Don't be such an old sap."

"I'm old now, am I?" Glou laughed, a warm and crackly rumble that came from deep inside his chest. "Well this old man can still run you around the practice grounds like a goose on fire." He have his son a friendly whack on the back, pointing him in the direction of the training grounds. "Go get your sword and we'll see how good you think you are."

Irritated but still looking forward to a match with his father, Albel jogged towards the sounds of clanging steel with his father not far behind him.


	6. Lesson

Sorry for the wait. Sometimes having to deal with a close friend that has worse problems than a character you're writing into a fanfiction is rather de-inspirationalizing. Real life can be such a bitch.

I WAS just gonna go on to the next scene, but since Miss Nox seemed so enthused at the idea of Albel vs. Glou, you get a fight. Meh, it should have been in there somewhere anyway.

And I did try to make this one a bit longer than the last chapter. Merf. I'm working on my length problems. :P

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 6: Lesson**

As might be expected, every time Albel fought with his father, he lost. That didn't make it any less enjoyable for either of them, though.

Over the years, Albel had managed to take his father past 'not even trying' into 'actually breaking a sweat'. He took a certain amount of pride in testing how far he could push Glou. His father was like an immovable wall, but Albel loved to try running up it anyway, even knowing that gravity would only drop him down once more. He ran a little higher up the wall every time.

After what seemed like barely moments to Albel, he was already panting heavily, moisture painting dark stains down his back and front. He could feel the practice blade slipping in his grasp, slick with sweat.

Glou, on the other hand, was bouncing on his toes, grinning like it was all a game. His katana whipped back and forth, an extension of his wirey frame, Albel only managing to block him half the time (in other words, when Glou let him).

"You can't beat me standing like that! Take your right foot back, you're wide open."

"I can't beat you no matter what," Albel complained but obediently brought his foot to rest further behind him.

Albel fell for a feint and was punished with a metallic slap on the cheek. He winced and shifted his feet to catch his balance.

"You're doing it again." Glou cut straight in and struck his son on the right shoulder to prove his point. "If you keep your right side to far up, there's more flesh for me to hit. So step back, you idiot!"

Irritated, Albel went for a straight lunge and was easily parried. Off-balance, the follow-up strike sent him to the ground, katana slipping from weakening fingers.

Frustrated and completely exhausted, Albel sat panting in the dust to catch his breath.

"Get up," Glou gave him a light boot in the rear. "If you sit your muscles will cramp. Walk it off. You'll beat me tomorrow."

"Shut up already!" Albel said, grabbing for his sword and levering himself to his feet. "I won't beat you tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. Just shut up about it!"

Glou only seemed amused. "No need to be such a pessimist."

"I'm not being whatever! I can't beat you, so just shut up! I don't fight you to win!" Albel stomped over to the weapon bins where he stuffed his sword in with a clatter.

Glou followed his son, casually tossing his own weapon from hand to hand. "Why fight if not to win? Competition is all about victory, no matter if it's life-or-death or just for fun."

"It's not for fun!" Albel began stripping off his light practice armor and throwing the pads into another bin.

"You don't think it's to 'do your best' or anything, do you? Have you been listening to Woltar again? I thought I'd established that he's a senile old fart."

Albel turned on his father, quite obviously angry. "I never listen to Woltar, so shut up already! Go away! Are you my dad or are you my stalker!"

Glou barked a laugh and tossed his sword into the weapons bin as he passed it. He wasn't wearing any armor. "Where do kids get this stuff? You're hilarious."

"Stop making fun of me!" Albel stormed back to the castle and Glou just stood there, laughing.

xxx

Glou Nox stood facing the stone wall of his room, gaze intent upon the blade that sat in wait on the wall bracket.

Glou wasn't one to keep weapons for decoration, and this particular katana was anything but. He never brought it out for practice and certainly never in the presence of his son – there was only one thing that the Crimson Scourge was for: killing.

Right now the sword slept, bored by its calm surroundings. It only ever began to hum when it sensed killing intent or blood. As long as it was left untouched, it was as harmless as a kitten. Just like any other weapon, it was the wielder that chose where the blade would fall.

Glou was started out of his reverie by the slam of the door in the next room as Albel walked in, carelessly throwing his things on the floor and making a beeline for his room to change out of his sweaty clothing.

"Not even an 'I'm home, my lord and father?' I should give you a spanking for that."

"Shut up, Dad." Splashing some cold water on his face and wiping it wish his shirt, Albel emerged from his room to throw himself on the thick, braided floor carpet like a sack of loose bones. He lay sprawled on his back, eyes closed, and promptly decided to go to sleep.

"Wake up, you lazy ass." Glou nudged his son's body with a woolly-socked toe. "Your duty to king and country commands you to rise."

Albel rolled away from the toe. "Fuck duty. I'm sleeping."

Glou started to walk away. "Ah, well, he doesn't care about duty. I suppose he wouldn't want to do anything like, oh, say, fight in a _real_ battle or anything as tedious as that..."

"What!" Albel shot up to a sitting position, suddenly all ears.

"Well, I _was_ going to put you with one of the troops that are leaving the castle a fortnight from now, seeing as you're thirteen and all, but I guess you'll be too busy sleeping..."

"I'm not too busy! Of course I want to go!" Albel was full on his feet now, barely restraining himself from bouncing up and down with glee. Glou didn't even bother suppressing his grin. _Most kids get excited about a Solstice gift. Albel gets excited about a battle. Well, can't say I wasn't..._

"Don't go jumping out of your pants now. You're going to be a member of the rear guard. It's full of greenies like you, with a few older veterans to keep you from wetting yourselves. You're not going to see much action at all."

Albel, however, did not seem to care. He was to buzzed with the anticipation.

"Seriously, son," Glou clapped his hands on his son's shoulders to stop him for a moment and make sure he was listening. "It's not a game. You're not going out there to have fun, you're going out there to serve."

The expression on Albel's face was exactly the same as the one on every teenager's face when they had to listen to some half-baked, semi-inspirational speech from an adult for whom their level of respect was rapidly diminishing. "Right."

"Sit down." Glou backed his son into a chair by their beat-up wooden table and firmly seated the skeptical Albel. "I'm not going to give you the same idealistic speech they give to recruits for the Brigades. You know all that already. This isn't about the glory of the country or the king or any of that bullshit. There's only two things you have to remember when you're at war: You're there to serve, and you're there to survive."

Albel squirmed a bit under the steady eye contact, but continued to listen.

"This is what soldiers, knights, military – this is what they're there for. You serve the king loyally with your sword and he rewards you with a home, a position, respect, money. It's a bond of trust. The king fulfills his duty as ruler, and it's your job to fulfill your end of the bargain as his warrior.

"I could go on about the moral implications of killing – and you will kill – but in the end you just need to survive. When you're on the field in the middle of a fight there's no time to think about why the king sent you here or what kind of people you're fighting or what their wives are thinking back home. All you need to do is serve, and survive."

Glou pulled up a chair at the table and leaned back. "It's sad, really. All we can do is think of the people closest to us and our immediate needs. It's hard to consider people that you don't know and will never meet. It may be selfish, but it's reality."

Albel didn't say anything and looked at his feet, but Glou was relitavely sure that he'd paid attention. Albel wasn't really as devil-may-care as he'd like to appear – he'd listen when what he had to hear was important.

"Well," Glou slapped his knees and bounced to his feet. "Now that I'm done giving you the speech, feel free to get back to your sleeping."

Albel looked up, annoyed. Glou knew that Albel wouldn't be getting to sleep until quite late that night.


	7. Vision

Nya, you reviewers just keep petting my ego like a little fluffy kitten. :-)

I have been poisoned by the following anime: Tsubasa RC, D.Gray-Man, xxxholic, Death Note, Fushigi Yuugi, Wolf's Rain. YES, BITTORRENT, I AM LOOKING AT YOU. I have a freshly bought volume 7 of Ghost in Shell 2nd gig sitting on my shelf and I haven't watched it yet. I am ashamed.

I'm also ashamed that I actually enjoy Fushigi Yuugi, but that's another story. :-P

I pumped the rating up for gore. Like, X/1999-style birth-of-the-sacred-sword gore. I loved that scene.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 7: Vision**

Glou liked to believe that Albel never noticed the sword that Glou had carefully mounted on the wall in his bedchambers. In hindsight, Glou considered that belief to be rather foolish.

The Crimson Scourge might as well have been a large, mysterious and shiny jar sitting on the very top of a tall set of shelves, the kind that any four-year-old would find tortuously tantalizing.

There was something about that weapon that told Albel it was not just an ordinary katana. He could sense _something_ from it – he didn't know quite what it was, but it was something that filled him with a insuppressible nervous energy. It was a weapon that should never have been left to rust on the wall. It would only feel right when in his hand.

When Glou was away tending to his diplomatic duties, Albel crept into his father's room and looked up at the sword resting on the metal bracket. He just needed to feel it in his hand, to swing it like it like he knew it wanted to be swung.

As Albel stepped closer to the wall, he could hear the weapon humming, almost _vibrating_ with anticipation. He reached up, and swallowed hard. No hesitation now. His fingers clasped the hilt.

Something like an electric shock coursed through Albel's body on contact, causing his entire body to spasm. His knees buckled; his fingers, still locked around the hilt, gripped the katana as it followed him to the floor. The steel of the sword screeched in harsh tones against the edge of the metal wall rack, the weapon dragging downwards in his fist as Albel's free palm hit the floor.

His breathing was heavy and ragged, his eyes open wide. The speeding blood in his body seemed to press against his veins. Albel had never felt this way before in his life. It was ecstasy.

Jumping to his feet like he had never fallen, Albel took a few experimental swings, but it wasn't good enough. The Scourge hadn't been forged to cut air. It wanted to cut into flesh, taste blood, and hit bone, seeking even further to reach the source of life and snuff it out. It wanted _violence_.

Albel was never able to say what it was that kept him from running out the door and impaling the first beating heart he saw. The sword filled him so completely that he needed to push the energy out of himself. He bounced on his toes and began going through some of his solo sword routines at double-speed. Dear God, he needed to hit something. His heart seemed to bruise the inside of his ribcage with each beat. He felt painfully hot. He wanted impact. Resistance. Stab slice slash cut cut cut **cut cut CUT**.

When Albel was done, not a single thing in his father's bedchambers was left whole. Pillows and futon were split open, spraying feathers and straw to every corner of the room. The wooden bedstead, the closet, all hacked and split beyond repair. His father's clothes provided no satisfaction at all. Too soft. Striking the stone walls only made his arms ache.

But even after decimating the room, the Crimson Scourge was still sharp enough to cut a hair.

Albel tried to pour all the heat into the room, but the weapon continued to pour more into him faster than he could release it. It demanded an outlet, and when Albel, exhausted, was unable to comply, It pounded at him, seeking an internal victim for its limitless rage. Albel's vision blurred, eyes shifting in and out of focus. He began to feel dizzy and sick.

The colors in front of his eyes began to bleed into each other, mixing and changing form. Blurred edges became clearer and a new scene met Albel's eyes. Scattered amongst the ruins of the chamber were limbs, bones, and unidentifiable lumps of flesh. It was hard to believe that all the blood splattered on the walls, ceiling and floor had belonged to only one person. But it had to be a single person. There was only one head.

The familiar face of his father smiled up at him from the floor, the severed neck still oozing dark blood.

Albel's arms could remember the stab, the slicing of skin and muscle and bone. His blade was still wet. He reached up to touch his face and felt the droplets of blood splattered there.

He felt amazing. He felt sick. Something inside him rebelled just as another part reveled in the joy, the exhilaration that rushed through him. Like a white-hot brand – jealousy anger hate RAGE and he wanted to cut and maim and kill and DESTROY and he would LOVE it oh he would –

– Power.

Albel began to smell smoke. His left arm was twisting, distorting, morphing from solid to gas. The smoke crept up into his nose and mouth, suffocating him. He choked, stumbling forward. He tried to break his fall with his left hand, but the hand seemed to go straight through the floor and Albel's face hit the ground.

Pushing off the ground with his sword arm, be brought his shoulder around to look at his left arm. He had to do something about this. It was going to kill him.

Unhesitating, Albel brought his sword arm around to lay the blade just below his bared shoulder, right before the smoke began. At this awkward angle, he wouldn't be able to swing the blade, he would only be able to saw.

At first it didn't hurt. It was only after he saw the growing puddle of blood pooling on the floor that he felt the blade lodged in his flesh and he screamed, wrenching the sword from his arm and forcing his fingers, unclamping them one by one to drop the blade.

In that moment he was terrified. The first thing that hit him was the instinct to run.

Scrambling to his feet and clasping his wounded arm, Albel ran out of his father's room, slamming the door behind him as if a slab of wood could protect him from what had just happened. He paused outside the door as he stood in his family's living quarters. Where was there to run to? Castle guards were everywhere. He couldn't go into the city and he _definitely_ couldn't go into the mountains.

Albel calmed his heartbeat, went into his room and pulled a roll of bandages out of his wooden trunk. He wound the white strip around his arm without care for the pain, then gingerly removed his sleeveless shirt in favour of a long-sleeved one.

He didn't have an excuse or a story, but that didn't matter. Glou was not going to get a thing out of him.


	8. Bloodstain

Wow, thanks for your reviews – ShadowShapeShifter, .Your.Suicide.Note., Miss Nox. You guys have made my week.

Miss Nox: Glou is stupid sometimes when it comes to children. He never really thought about it, at all. This is the guy who decided to raise a kid on his own without actually knowing anything about how to do so.

Sorry for the wait. -.-; I started played SO3 again on Universe. Walking around in Airyglyph castle just made me feel guilty (this one dragon brigade soldier was going on about how all the Nox family up to Glou had been captains of the dragon brigade, and 'If that is not destiny then I do not know what destiny is' and it made me want to write again). Ergh.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 8: Bloodstain**

Glou strolled into his living room, slamming the heavy wooden door with his foot and munching on a half a slightly stale loaf of cheesebread filched from the kitchen. Stretching with a yawn, he noted Albel's non-presence in the suite, the door to his son's room closed and silence. Odd. Usually he had returned from practice by now.

Glou peeked into his son's room and noted that it was quite empty. "Albel?" Shrugging, Glou stuffed the remaining bits of bread into his mouth and went to his room to get changed. He opened the door, shut it behind him and even began unlacing his tunic before he noticed the state of the room.

His room being quite spartan, the wreckage wasn't as chaotic as it could have been. Glou's first reaction was more confusion than shock.

But everything else was wiped from his mind the moment he saw the Crimson Scourge on the floor, blade streaked with fresh blood, hilt sitting in a wide pool of the drying red.

Of course the blood on the blade was fresh. Blood never dried on the Crimson Scourge.

Glou whipped around and frantically fumbled with the door latch, stumbling when he ran out of his quarters. "ALBEL!"

He broke down the corridors of Airyglyph castle, desperate echoes of his son's name bouncing off the bleak stone walls. Servants, courtiers, and soldiers turned to look as he bolted through the entrance chamber into the biting autumn air.

"ALBEL!" The cold air stung his throat, and he could taste blood in the back of his mouth. Glou paused for a moment, panicking in his indecision. Where could his son be? Where should he look? Why didn't he just _know_, instinctively, goddammit?

Glou set off again, boots pounding the cracked cobblestones at his feet. He didn't have any idea where he was going. He searched all around the castle. Albel never went into the city, but Glou looked anyway, running until his sides cramped and his breath game in gasps. It was almost dark when he came back to the castle and asked everyone he ran into if they had seen his son.

A servant said that Albel had been up to his rooms a few moments ago but had left again for the outdoor practice grounds. Glou ruffled through his pockets and deposited a large pile of bronze and silver coins into the astonished servant's hands and dashed down the staircase to the practice grounds.

Glou nearly crumbled in relief when he saw that Albel was there, practicing his swordwork like nothing in the world was wrong.

"Albel!" Glou yelled. Albel paused in his work to turn around, relaxing his sword. Glou was hunched over, braced on his knees to catch his breath. He straightened to grasp Albel's shoulders, forcing Albel to look at his face. "Tell me! Did you touch the sword?"

"...No."

"Tell me the truth!" Glou shook his son by the shoulders and, in shifting his grip, noticed Albel flinch and pull his left arm in.

Glou yanked the loose neck of Albel's shirt down to reveal a swath of bloodied bandages wrapped around his son's left upper arm.

"Tell me what happened!" Glou repeated. Albel said nothing, eyes drifting away.

"Look at me when I speak to you!" Glou's grip on his son's shoulders tightened and Albel gasped in pain. Glou immediately regretted it and let his left hand drop. "Albel, please!"

Albel couldn't look at his father's face. He wasn't sure which scared him more – that if he looked at Glou he would see a bloody corpse or his father's pleading eyes. The hand on his shoulder was shaking and white-knuckled.

"Father, we're in public." Albel pried off his father's hand and began to turn away.

A tight grip on his wrist prevented him, and Albel dropped his practice blade in surprise. "You're not going anywhere." Glou fairly dragged Albel by his right arm out of the practice courts and into the castle, up the stairs to the Nox quarters. Still gripping his son's wrist, Glou threw the door to his chamber open and bent down the pick the still-wet Scourge off of the large dried bloodstain on the floor.

Glou released Albel's wrist and shoved the sword in his son's face. "You don't _ever _touch this. _Ever_. This is not a tool. This is not a weapon. This is violence incarnated into a fucking chunk of steel. If you touch this ever again I will prise the blade out of your gut and use it to remove your head. Don't you – ever – _ever – _" Glou stopped and brought a hand to his face. His shoulders were shaking.

Albel was shocked. He had never seen his father cry before. He wasn't sure what to do. He stood there for a moment, awkwardly, before exiting the room to leave Glou alone.

Albel went into his room and sat down on his bed, trying to force himself not to think.

It didn't work.

xxxxxxxxxx

Taking certain recent events into account, Glou considered it his God-given right to go to the bar in town and get falling-down drunk. As usual, Woltar was babysitting him.

"And then – he even had the balls to claim –"

"Glou," Woltar interrupted. "You've been going on for almost half an hour now about some island ambassador we both know you don't care about. Get to the point so I can go home before midnight, please."

Glou stopped and looked at his beer, decided he needed to be drunker and took a generous swig.

"I've never been so scared in my life," he admitted. "I just kept thinking about all the things that could have happened to Albel. He could have died. I, of all people, should know what that sword is capable of. I'm so stupid." Glou took another drink.

"I don't even know what happened. He won't say anything and I'm too afraid to ask. Maybe I don't want to know what he saw. I've only ever told one person what I saw the first time I touched that thing. It's... not something you can talk about."

"Fuck..." Glou put his head to the cool counter and buried it in his arms. "I – I don't..."

"Don't pass out yet." Woltar took a sip from his ale. "I can't carry you back."

Glou chuckled into his arms, laughing far more than the quip really merited. "I used to think that duty to the king and country was what mattered. Serving loyally. I was so full of shit. I _knew_ she was going to have the baby but I left because it was 'an important battle.' I wasn't there when my own wife died!"

"There was nothing you could have done. You're not a midwife."

"I should have been there." Glou's hands balled into fists in his hair. "I've never been there. Not for her, not for Albel. I've been off with the Dragon Brigade when I should have been taking care of my family."

Woltar slapped his hand down on the counter. "Stop it. You're abusing yourself for no reason. What other father in Airyglyph tried to raise his son on his own, even bringing him to war councils just so you could give him his evening snack? Who else has devoted every spare moment of his time to teaching and supporting his son? Your son worships you."

"He hates me."

"He's a teenager. Of course he hates you. More than that, he loves you. Give it time. You've never been lacking as a father."

"I hope you're right." Glou levered himself back into a sitting position, tried to stand up, and stumbled to his knees. "Ugh. I'm dizzy."

Woltar got up as well and offered his long-time war buddy, drinking companion and friend a hand. "Get up. You're drunk enough."

Glou took the hand and walked back to the castle.


	9. Reality

Gawd, feel free to berate me for my complete lack of updating. I have no excuse. Uhh... I blame Suikoden V. Everyone has to play that game; the series is flipping awesome and seriously underappreciated.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 9: Reality**

Albel had always been the type to turn in late and rise early, but ever since his encounter with the Crimson Scourge, he had barely slept a few hours each night. It was not so much the dreams that he could scarcely remember the next morning – it was the lying awake, unable to keep the anxiety at bay long enough for him to drift off to sleep.

Those nights he stayed awake Albel had no choice but to keep his own thoughts company, and they were not thoughts he enjoyed spending time with. It was so much easier to act than to think; so much easier to feel the clang of metal and the rare-but-so-exhilarating slice against flesh than to consider the moral implications of those emotions.

During sword practice, where Albel would have dashed in aggressively he defended; where he would have attacked he held back. When he would have let his tongue lash carelessly he reserved his remarks.

These changes did not go without Glou's notice. Though he was worried about Albel, perhaps a dose of caution and reservation was exactly what the boy had needed. He wouldn't go so far as to say the incident with the Crimson Scourge was a _good_ thing, but...

Not without trepidation, Glou decide to honor his promise to Albel and sent his son out with the third regiment of the Black Brigade. The chance that the boy would see any action was small, and he could use some field experience with common soldiers.

Although Albel's excitement seemed somewhat dampened, he still very much wanted to go. He practiced with a diligence that Glou had never observed in him before, but if the the man noticed that there was something lacking in his son's spirit, Glou pushed it from his mind.

The morning of Albel's departure, Glou made sure to rise extra early, even before the pre-dawn light began to seep over the horizon, to send his son off. His Dragon Brigade unit would be leaving later, on wing. Despite that and all his pre-planned speeches and jokes and fatherly advice, nothing came out of his mouth in the end. He simply slapped his son on the shoulder and walked back into the castle without looking back at the expression on Albel's face.

xxx

Albel would soon find that being a soldier involved quite a lot of marching. The Storm and Dragon Brigades got to ride, but the Blacks had to walk. Having little training (and no love) for riding and not being of age for the Accession of the Flame, Albel was thrown in amongst the foot solders.

If there was one thing that the trek gave him, it was an appreciation for dust. It got everywhere: under his light armor, into his boots, and clouded his eyes so he found himself squinting and rubbing his eyes in frustration until he realized that his gritty hands were only making it worse and gave up.

If he had hoped to gain the respect of the other soldiers with the prowess of his blade, his hopes were quickly dashed with the first few condescending remarks about the 'greenies'.

His peers were no better – mostly peasant recruits and conscripts filled the ranks of the new soldiers. Albel knew that Airyglyph had mandatory military service for young men, but he had never considered what it meant in terms of the people he would personally associate with. They spoke in an unschooled manner and treated Albel with only the token respect due to a person of his rank. For the most part, they ignored him. Having attained the status of dusty invisibility, Albel realized that he vastly preferred the outright hostility he normally received.

It came to the point where Albel resorted to any excuse to offend the common boys. When rations were being handed out, he demanded he be served first and took far more than was his share, just to get a rise out of someone.

While he got a few narrow-eyed glances and he was _positive_ that they were snarking behind his back, none of the maggots ever did a single thing to challenge him. He couldn't believe that his noble status would frighten them so much that they wouldn't even stand up for their own sense of dignity. It was disgusting. Albel ate his meals alone and ground the large amount of food he didn't eat into the dust, just to rub it into their filthy faces.

As the regiment descended the mountain, the sustained march began to get warmer and warmer. Albel was forbidden to take off his armor in case of a theoretical – excuse me, _possible –_ enemy attack. Days of forced march grated on his nerves as much as sleeping on rocky ground made his back ache every morning.

One morning he saw a wing of dragons with mounts pass overhead, continuing towards the front lines. Albel strained to see if perhaps one of them was his father's dragon, but they were far too high for him to tell.

Rocky and sparse mountains blurred into bushy, rolling hills and hardy mountain evergreens gave way to small clusters of leafy, shrub-like trees. When a messenger on dragonback came from the front lines warning of nearby enemy encampments, Albel nearly shrieked with joy. Finally, and end to this miserable boredom! As they set up camp and sent out scouts, Albel nearly bounced with the kind of excitement that he could not remember having felt for what seemed like ages. He burned time by sharpening and cleaning his blade and practicing some basic routines. He didn't want to wear himself out before the real fight.

More waiting than Albel cared for followed. Anticipation turned to further boredom. He would have left his sword unattended in his own personal tent (rank did have its benefits), had the the lieutenant not shown the first piece of balls he had seen during this entire trip and told him to go back to his tent and get his goddamned weapon.

When the attack came, it was suddenly and during the night. Albel was woken into a bleary state of consciousness by the alarm trumpet as he fumbled to buckle on his leathers and grab his helmet, grabbing his sword as he rushed out to look for the enemy.

Soldiers were pouring out of tents, following a set of commands that Albel seemed to have missed. He paused, uncertain, before picking a random group of soldiers to follow wherever it was they seemed to be going.

Yells bounced back and forth, and Albel only caught vague pieces of information – 'surprise' – 'rear' – 'scouts...killed' 'backup...gon brigade' and other words that were chewed by the pounding of boots.

He followed his pet unit, heart pounding. They either didn't recognize him or didn't care as they dashed towards a dense and brushy copse of trees.

Cursing followed a flurry of arrows as two of the men in front fell without warning, and Albel drew his sword, searching the trees for their attackers. A surprisingly fit old man beside Albel drew his bow to fire a return volley towards the trees before Albel could even see who the man was aiming for, felling a body from the leaves to land with a _crack_ on the leafy floor.

What happened next was a mass of bodies and steel viciously thrashing against itself. Albel's drawn sword encountered many things that might have been metal or leather or flesh, but it was less cutting and more a beating of anything that came near. Albel was jostled to the back of the group as they pushed their way through the trees out into the open again.

Albel heard a cry from what sounded like far ahead of him and the sound of booted feet behind him. He spun around only fast enough to have his guard broken, sword wrenched from his hands by a strength that he had never felt before. His breath hitched and he began gasping for the air that there didn't seem to be enough of, and he looked up to see a man in heavy armor towering over him, gigantic ax rising to strike the finishing blow.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl in that instant, where all he could do was watch the blade rise and know, in the frozen grip of terror, that he was going to die. Albel should have been at the other end of that blade, grasping the handle as he brought death upon his enemy. This was all wrong.

A part of his mind was screaming at him to _move_, to get out of the way, grab his sword and do something, _anything_, just not to _sit_ here and _die_ like and insect waiting to be squashed – but that part of his mind was so weak. His body was shaking and he could not move an inch as the ax descended.

A sudden gust of wind passed over him and a shaft of metal sprouted from the ax-wielder's neck. A shadow passed overhead and a man in red armor with a beltful of throwing spears and an unsheathed sword dropped from the sky to land gracefully to his knees in a cloud of dust, running towards Albel. "Move out, towards the north! We're backing you! NOW!"

The dust cleared and Albel recognized his father's face barking orders. As the dust settled and so did his fear, the heat in his face began to rise. How – how _dare_ Glou _rescue_ him like a – a _child _or a _woman – _

Albel rushed toward his father without a thought outside of rage, face burning with humiliation and fist clenched. He was certainly not prepared for the fierce, closed-fisted blow that send him to the ground.

Glou's teeth nearly grated against each other as he beat his son with his words just as harshly as he had with his fist. "I don't have time for your bullshit. **Move!**" Glou dragged Albel by his wrist to his feet, shoved a blade into his hands and shoved him in the direction that the other men were running.

After that Albel had no time to think about anything other than running. Wind cut at his back as dragons passed overhead as he ran and ran and ran.

xxx

It ended as suddenly as it began, and Albel was sitting in an impromptu camp with the surviving soldiers, a few dragons scattered here and there as Dragon Brigade soldiers landed to gather information and orders and move out again.

Glou was nowhere to be seen, but Albel noticed his father's second-in-command, Vox, giving orders to various soldiers of the Brigade. The soldiers saluted him and dashed towards their mounts, and as their dragons rose into the air Vox began to stride towards him, a sneer just barely curling his lips.

"Boy," Vox said, not even deigning to speak Albel's name, "Although you proved quite expectedly useless, at least you survived. It would have been irritating for me to inform your father of your death."

Albel, furious, opened his mouth to retort, but was swiftly cut off. "Spare me. Follow the fourth regiment to base and await orders. I hope you can do at least that." Albel rose to his feet in protest as Vox turned away towards his dragon and vaulted into the saddle, leaving in yet another cloud of dust.

Bile rose in Albel's throat as he felt he would be sick.

He swallowed it.


	10. Reminiscence

Whoa. No excuse. I hope to update more regularly from now on.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 10: Reminiscence**

In the following months Albel grew like a weed, up but not out. He gained that sort of gawky figure that was all arms and legs and no meat, which wasn't helped by his diminishing appetite. His father repeatedly tried to shove food down his throat but Albel couldn't seem to find the motivation to eat it.

After Albel's embarrassment in his first skirmish Glou did not let him onto the battlefield for a number of months. Albel would not let on but he wasn't too keen on revisiting the field of his humiliation. He began waking up a little later in the day to practice and would quit before he was really exhausted. The half-hearted swings of his sword didn't seem to give him the kind of pleasure and vindication that it once had, and he began to grow careless, careless enough to injure himself in practice. The wound on his torso wasn't serious enough to merit serious medical attention but the pain kept him awake at night and he barely slept.

Sometimes Albel gave up trying to sleep and crept out at night to sit outside in the snow, distracting his body with the cold. Tonight, however, he noticed the soft light of candles seeping under his door. He stepped out of his chamber to see his father sitting at the table with a bottle of rum at is right hand, forehead supported by his palm.

Glou raised his head at his son's entrance, and motioned for Albel to take a seat. Albel was uncomfortable with the unfamiliar scene but complied.

"Your mother died fourteen years ago tonight."

That would explain it. With recent events passing as they had, Albel had forgotten his own birthday. It seems that his father had as well, Albel thought bitterly, instead opting to mourn his dead wife.

Glou did not wait for a reply and spoke anyway. "I know it's silly to do this every year. Completely meaningless. I just feel that I have to."

Albel couldn't even begin to think of what he was supposed to say at a time like this. Give his father a comforting pat on the pack? Offer sympathy? Say something trite like, '_I'm_ here, father?' Albel shifted and planted his feet on the floor as if to get up and leave.

"Don't." Something about the way Glou said that made Albel stay. "I know I sound like a drunk old man right now but... you'll understand eventually. When you're older, and married."

Albel swallowed. "I don't want a wife."

Glou laughed, soft and brief. "I guess you're too young now to be thinking of that sort of thing. Trust me: you'll want a woman in time. There's more to life than victory and battles."

There were words in his mouth that Albel couldn't find the breath to let out. He said nothing.

"Ah, go back to bed. I've got nothing important to say anyway." Glou looked back at his flask and took a large swig.

Albel jumped at the chance to leave, even if it meant he would not be able to go out into the snow. He went back to his chamber and shut the door with a _click_ before throwing himself onto his bed for another night of sleeplessness. He rolled onto his side and curled towards the wall, the pain from his bandaged wound nearly forgotten.

Around dawn, sheer exhaustion brought him to sleep.


	11. Disillusion

The last chapter was really short but I wanted it to be separate from this one. But yeah, here's the chapter...

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 11: Disillusion**

Albel's days seemed to stretch into the void as he sank into a dispassionate melancholy. He began to grow restless, sick of the same training grounds and castle corridors he saw every day. He took to wandering into the city that he had never had much interest in before now, if only for the change in scenery.

Fall had long since crumbled into winter and the city streets were covered in snow. Only the more affluent districts and main thoroughfares were cleared by the city; the poor had to do their own shoveling – those that were fit enough to do so, that is. It seemed that every other alleyway had some under-clad group of ne'er-do-wells huddled together for warmth, some with fires and some without. Albel loosed his arms from his expensive fur cloak and almost wished for some petty thief to accost him for it and give him an excuse.

Panhandlers, even on the main streets alternately yelled and started crying as he passed, begging for money, food, or clothing. Albel kicked a crippled man who grabbed at his feet as he passed. The old bastard was probably faking it to get more handouts.

Every block he passed only served to disgust Albel and drive him further into morbidity. Even the people who worked where thin, pale, and hoarded their coins and bread. The army fed its soldiers and men scrambled to get in, but too many were turned away due to health or age.

The richest parts of town were where the soldiers drank and the women served the soldiers. People everywhere talked of the next victory and when a shipment of foodstuffs would arrive. People who weren't even in battle had their lives riding on the war.

As Albel pulled his feet through the snow he felt a tug on the back of his cloak and whipped around, grabbing an arm and slamming the figure behind him into the stone wall of an adjacent building and drawing his sword.

His gaze met the terrified eyes of a girl that was younger than he was, no more than twelve years of age. She trembled in clothing that was too big for her and raised a shaky hand to tuck her thin hair behind one ear. "M'Lord..." her eyes looked away from his. "I wondered if – if milord would want something to keep him warm tonight."

Albel recoiled in disgust and sheathed his sword. "Go back to your mother, little girl." He spun around without waiting for a reply, knowing full well that the girl probably didn't have one.

The city fell to darkness early and Albel retraced his steps and stomped into one of the better taverns in town when the cold began to get to him. Slush covered the floor and two fireplaces weren't nearly enough, but it was better than nothing. As Albel walked in he saw the bartender tossing out a drunkard who had no money left to pay for booze.

One look at his clothing and his sword had the humbler patrons backing away in a combination of fear and respect. The older and more experienced soldiers who sat at the bar grunted and ignored him. The bartender's firm hand stopped him before he reached the counter. "Milord, I apologize, but I must take yer weapon."

Albel paused for a second before relenting and unbuckling his blade, tossing it towards the bartender as if it didn't even matter to him. Sauntering up the the counter, he threw his cloak over his shoulders and took a seat at the stool.

"Get me a drink."

The bartender only raised his eyebrow at Albel's youth, and went to fill a solid clay mug at the tap. Albel's first taste of a mug that was all his own was bitter and unpleasant, but he suppressed a grimace and downed half the mug in one go, and paused before finishing the rest. "More."

The bartender paused in his polishing of a mug. "You might want to slow down there, milord. Yer takin' it rather fast."

"Just get me another damned drink!"Albel slammed his mug against the counter for emphasis, drawing a few glares from other patrons. The bartender complied and Albel took his the second mug and pushed it all down in one go as if purely to spite the man. He choked on the last gulp but forced it down anyway as it went straight to his head and made him blink to clear his eyes.

The man sitting to his right watched him out of the corner of his eyes and Albel stared at him full in the face until he looked away. As soon as Albel looked away he felt the man's eyes on him again. Albel knew it should have made him feel uneasy, and knowing it didn't didn't sit well with him. He ordered another drink.

Fully half Albel's mind wondered what he hoped to accomplish by doing this. The other half pushed those thoughts away. If he couldn't do anything on his own, at least he was still capable of dragging himself down to the bar and getting himself piss drunk. His logic was slowly deteriorating into formless discontent, and he began looking for any excuse to start a fight. If someone so much as said a _word_ to him that could be _remotely_ taken the wrong way –

He desperately wanted someone to say something.

xxx

Glou went to track down his wayward son after the boy had played hooky on his practice for the third time in a row. Yes a certain amount of sympathy was in order for recent events, but enough time and passed and Albel was pushing it. Glou would box his ears as soon as he tracked him down, that was one thing for sure.

After coming the castle and coming up empty-handed, Glou headed out into Airyglyph city.

xxx

When the man on his right finally opened his mouth, the simple, "Aren't you a little young to be here?" coming out of his lips was enough to send Albel's fist flying into the man's face, landing with a sharp noise that would surely leave the other man with a black eye. The man cried out in surprise and brought his hand to his cheek, coming away with a smear of blood. Before Albel could react the man retaliated and Albel was on the floor, scrambling to his feet.

"Take it outside! Now!" The bartender yelled but Albel wasn't listening. He only heard his heart in his throat and the breath escaping between his teeth. Alcohol blurred the corners of his vision and he didn't feel secure on his feet. Everything seemed to matter less now, the fear was gone and he wondered why he was always so incapable of doing the things that he wanted. He had exactly what he wanted here in the rush and the feel of blood in his veins and he wasn't _afraid_ at all, he just took what he wanted with both hands clasping the side of the man's face and raising his own up in something that wasn't so much a kiss as lips mashing together, all teeth and wet tongue and no pretty metaphors at all. Unshaven stubble scratched his chin and it was disgusting but _good_ and he felt a hand at his crotch, shocking him. He bit like an animal and tasted blood. He wanted more of it, he wanted –

Then it all stopped. Albel was yanked backwards by a familiar hand on his collar and his father was there with Albel's sword in one hand and a handful of Albel's cloak in the other.

"Get your hands off of me!" Albel's drunken struggles amounted to nothing as Glou practically dragged him out of the bar.

"You're drunk," Glou said flatly as he yanked Albel down the steps to fling him into the dirty snow of the street outside the tavern.

The slush seeped through Albel's cloak to chill him into partial sobriety. He couldn't look up at his father's face and for the first time since childhood he had to fight the urge to cry.


	12. Respect

Excuses fail me. hangs head Hey, wait, now I can start blaming school again! _Awesome._

Heh. Albel is such a lightweight. Well, he hadn't really eaten all day, and let's just say that particular bar's mugs were very large.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 12: Respect**

Albel woke up the next morning in a mussed bed with a dry mouth and a pounding headache, accompanied by that feeling of nausea where you want to throw up full knowing that you're not quite sick enough to do so. He decided then and there that the whole alcohol thing was overrated and more trouble than it was worth. Dressing was a chore, but once he'd splashed some water on his face from the basin in his bedchamber he began to feel conscious again.

He grabbed his sheathed sword from where it had been leaning against the wall and stepped out of his chamber to see Glou sitting at the table, slowly running a whetstone down the blade of his sword. Glou's gaze rose briefly to acknowledge Albel's entrance and then went back to fixing on his weapon.

Albel hesitated there for a moment, feeling sick all over again. He felt like any one of the dozen things he had to say would be enough for that one moment, but these thoughts remained coiled behind his tongue, filling his throat until he had barely enough space left to breathe. This time he recognized this feeling for what it was: cowardice.

Moving swiftly out the door and pounding down the stone corridors, Albel smothered his fear with a mounting anger. _Why don't you just say it, you old fool?_ He raised his hands to grip his upper arms as he marched, breathing harder than the brisk walk would force him to. _Look me straight in the eye and say it. _

_Tell me I can't associate properly with others. Tell me I'm arrogant and overconfident. Tell me I'm ungrateful for you raising me. Tell me I can't fight any real battles. Tell me that I'm an embarrassment._

Albel's headache was only aggravated by his tightly clenched jaw as he strode outside into the crisp winter air of the training grounds, eyes momentarily blinded by the light of the reflected sun.

_Why the fuck won't you say it, you stupid bastard?!_

He drew his sword and slashed wildly at the nearest practice dummy before flinging his sword into the nearest snowbank, beyond caring, and feeling slightly dizzy.

_Tell me that I'm _weak.

He threw up into the snow and stared at the vomit that was mostly liquid, the smell making him want to do it all over again. _I hate this._

Albel wasn't so sure that he meant the hangover.

xxx

Spring clawed its way out of winter and Albel was again assigned with a unit. He performed better than he had the last time – though it was really hard to do any worse – and the subsequent skirmishes managed to gain him some small respect among his peers. What had once seemed exciting slipped into routine, and even his minor successes on the battlefield failed to give him any pleasure.

It was about that time that a certain lieutenant – a man that Albel remembered only in passing – gave some unwise orders to his subordinates in the absence of his captain, resulting in the death of all of his men. The day after he returned to Airyglyph city alone they found his body hanging from the lamp-hook on the ceiling in his chambers, sending the maid who found the corpse into a terrible panic.

Albel was not in attendance at the funeral – he had hardly even met the poor sap and cared little about his sad demise. His father, however, had gone, and returned from the event with a sour expression on his face.

In his longest speech to Albel in the past few months, Glou spat upon the soldier's metaphorical grave. "That kind of man is as low as you can get," he hissed, loosening the ties to his dress tunic and running his hands through his hair. Albel noticed a new streak of gray peeking out from underneath the dark mop. "He couldn't face up to his responsibility and dropped it all in his weakness. ...Disgusting."

"How cold of you," Albel remarked.

Glou shot his son a piercing glance. "Fine words for someone who didn't even attend the funeral."

Albel turned away. "And why should I have? I didn't even know him; you did. It was no concern of mine."

There had been a time when Glou would have stopped his son and berated him for his attitude, but he was just so tired. Albel left in silence.

Turing the corner towards the training grounds, Albel bumped into vice-captain Vox. The older man cast him a bored glance before moving towards Glou's chambers.

"Wait." Albel grabbed the man by the arm. Vox turned around slowly as if barely able to pull his eyes towards what must be the scum of the earth. "Where are you going?"

Vox frowned. "I have... business to discuss with the Captain. You need not worry yourself with it." He spoke as if talking to a child.

"Oh really?" Albel bristled. "One day you'll be calling _me_ Captain."

Vox snorted laughter. "Oh please, spare me your baseless arrogance. Wait until you've won a dragon first, greenhorn." He left no room for reply, turning on his heel to step back onto his previous path.

Albel spat on the stones behind Vox's feet, and the man didn't even notice.

xxx

The following weeks alternated between restlessness and extreme boredom. A lull in the conflict meant there were no battles to be fought and Albel was forced to satisfy himself by beating other soldiers on the training grounds, something that he had found to be not even half as interesting as real battle. He was by no means yet a hardened veteran, but his few experiences on the field had pared away his initial panic as reflexes and training began to take over and he chalked up his initial failure to shock.

The training grounds were no longer a challenge, no longer a climb to beat the next strongest on the ladder. There was a shortage of men who would stand a chance to him one-on-one, and those remaining were mostly high officers and captains who would typically not waste their time on sparring with a rookie, busy as they were in the war rooms with the King and his advisors.

Albel wanted to up the ante. He was not meant to be among the foot soldiers of the Black Brigade and he knew it, yearning for the day when he could take his rightful place among the riders of the Dragon Brigade. He certainly had the skills and chafed at his father's hesitation... surely Glou should know better than anyone else of Albel's ability.

Even among the regular army members, the dragons were somewhat of a mystery. They were only approached by their handlers and did not take well to outsiders. In a fight, however, they were anything but a mystery – and Albel had seen their power first hand. Mounted and airborne, Albel knew he would be unstoppable, capable of besting even that asshole Vox.

He pressed and pressed his father, letting Glou know that he was more than ready. He knew eventually he could make the man crumble... and crumble he did.

Albel eagerly anticipated the Accession of the Flame.


	13. Accession of the Flame

I've been dragging this out for over a year. That's... sad. Really sad.

But anyway, I really want to push this and finish so I can focus on my current work – pimp pimp – a totally epic (or not) and humongously slashy KH fic.

I took a bit of liberty here with the information from the dictionary – it said that only Vox and King Airyglyph had so far tamed air dragons from the Urssa Lava Caves, but I read that as the only two _living _people to have done it – which makes more sense to me.

I'll also say here that SO3 kicks ass over Anne McCaffrey. The idea of any creature sharing your thoughts has to turn off SOME people, and I prefer the idea of fighting for the honour of a bond with a dragon rather than being arbitrarily chosen. Also, Anne McCaffrey milked that series to hell. And she denied that the green riders were gay. Which they so were.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 13: Accession of the Flame**

"I can't tell you exactly what it involves but..." Glou paused, choosing his words as carefully as he could, "Just know that you will be tested in every way. Don't make the mistake of thinking that it will be easy." He leveled his gaze at his son, wanting to make sure that Albel understood.

"Sure." Albel shrugged off his father's steady gaze, positive that Glou was just paranoid. He could handle whatever they threw at him.

Glou sighed and dipped his hand into his tunic pocket, pulling out an intricately carved and obviously very old flute. It was one-handed and only had four holes on the top and one on the bottom. "You're going to need this for what you want to do. I used it during my Accession and my father did before me." He brought it to his lips and produced a shrill tone, followed by another two. "Repeat that." He held the flute out to Albel.

Albel took the instrument and awkwardly held it in his hands, blowing a few soundless puffs of air.

"Move it up a bit. Purse your lips more."

He made a noise – not a nice one, and mimicked the finger movements of his father.

"That's it." Glou took the instrument back and played strange and atonal sequence of eight notes before repeating it. "This is the tune you will need to play to call an air dragon to you, to challenge him. There are other, simpler sequences for opening doors and such." He played a few more notes before handing the instrument back to his son, making Albel repeat the sequences until he was convinced that the boy had them memorized.

"Keep this flute close." Glou ordered him. "One day you will give it to your son."

Ceremony in Airyglyph was nothing like the tedious and complex sort of rituals that he heard they practiced in Aquaria. Albel had to jump naked into a freezing pool at dawn (in the middle of winter no less) and stand under a waterfall for a while (something to do with 'cleansing'). Then he had to fast for a full day before donning the plain white ceremonial garb and trekking up the Mountains of Barr.

Every year about between ten and fifteen young hopefuls climbed the mountain to test themselves, and typically only three or four came back. Each time they would be overseen by the king, the Captain of the Dragon Brigade and an escort of three warriors of the Dragon Brigade. Albel wondered if perhaps this wasn't a bit much, but it had been done that way since the first King of Airyglyph had journeyed up the Dragon Road, and tradition was tradition. At least the poor suckers who didn't make it would have a fine audience for their deaths. The king and his followers would fly up to the top of the mountain to observe Albel's trials, but he had to climb up the mountain alone with only a set of vague and rather cryptic instructions to guide his path.

The slopes near the bottom of the mountain were covered in snow and wild land dragons; the former Albel trudged through and the latter met the blade of his sword without mercy. As he climbed higher the unnatural heat that seemed to be emitted from the mountain year-round began to show and the snow trickled away to reveal bare, sandy slopes and sheer rock faces. It didn't start getting hot until Albel pushed through the waterfall and entered the Barr Caves, the humidity hitting him like a wall. He waded through ankle-deep water and more water dripped from stalactites above him, landing on his head and joining the sweat on his forehead to drip into his eyes.

Other people might not even have come in here, but Albel wasn't going to content himself with one of the lesser air dragons that congregated outside. His father had frowned but had not tried to dissuade him and he had gotten a piercing look from the king during his audience, but Albel had determined that he would defeat one of the air dragons in the legendary lava caves. At present, only his father, Vox, and the king had tamed dragons from the Lava Caves. They were at a level beyond the beasts that crawled on the rock outside, older, more powerful, and some even capable of speaking human tongue.

Beating the dragons and other vermin that crowded the caverns only served to heat Albel's blood, and he began to recognize some of the runes on the walls signaling that he was indeed on the true Dragon Road. The king and his entourage would be waiting at the entrance to the Lava Caves where the would follow him at a distance, only watching, never interfering. Having already made a pact with the dragons, they would never be touched by any of the monsters that would attack Albel on sight.

He passed through the strangely carved doors that opened into the ancient temple ruins. The wide, high-ceilinged corridors echoed his footsteps in a hollow, eerie fashion, but Albel's anticipation overrode the anxiety.

The final room in the corridor saw Albel striding most confidently towards the awaiting party, pulling a rag out of his pocket and casually wiping the blood off his sword to sheathe it and kneel before the king. His father and three soldiers whose faces he recognized stood there with him, all accompanied by their air dragons. The dragons seemed to be unusually energized, and where they typically ignored him today they seemed to be keenly interested. It put Albel a bit on edge, but he shoved it to the back of his mind.

"Rise, Albel," said the king, and Albel did so. "Now begins the true test. It is my duty to offer you a final opportunity to turn back. More men die than survive The Accession and it is no shame to value your life."

Albel could see his father standing behind the king and to his right. His father's eyes were unreadable though fully focused on Albel.

"Of course I will continue. There is no way I could fail." Albel's palm rested on the pommel of his sword and he smirked.

The king nodded. "Then continue, and have faith." The stone door behind the king ground open and a wave of heat flowed out from the glowing chamber. Albel repressed the urge to look back at his father as he stepped through the portal into the room.

It was all stone and lava here and the rock seemed to glow with heat – in fact, the entire room seemed to be lit solely by this glow. Where before Albel had been uncomfortable, now he felt if he stayed here long he would burn and he began to sweat in earnest.

Monsters that were more flame than flesh swarmed the caverns and shuffled toward him in disturbing, lopsided movements, and dispatching them was much harder than the dragons outside had been. With some he felt like he was just cutting at flame and it took longer than he had anticipated to find their weak points and take them down.

After clearing the main cavern, Albel stopped to rest and clean his sword, keenly aware of the eyes at his back. He shifted the weapon to his left hand and drew out his father's flute, carefully playing out the sequence of notes that he had been taught. The noise bounced off the walls of the cavern, coming back to him distorted and even more strange than the original tune.

At first there was nothing, but then he began to hear this whirring sound, the sound growing to something that almost sounded like hundreds of drums overlaid by a high-pitched screeching. Albel had to fight not to cover his ears and maintain a defensive stance as air dragons began to fly in from every corner of the cavern, each one landing with a slam that shook the whole cavern. Some landed with screeching sounds as their claws scraped bare rock and others landed in pools of lava, seemingly impervious to the heat. One by one they began to form a circle, each one craning their long necks forward to take a better look at the tiny human who challenged them.

The king's dragon, his fathers dragon and the others also joined the circle and they seemed to be _conversing_ with the other dragons, heads bobbing and weaving and wings making short flapping motions, or claws scratching in various patterns that were indecipherable to Albel. They all made crooning and screeching and rasping noises, the cacophony grating on Albel's ears and on his nerves.

After some moments the noise began to recede and the dragons fell into silence, and Albel realized that they expected him to speak. His hold on his sword began to slip as a nervous sweat slicked the hilt, but he re-adjusted his grip on the weapon and tightened his fingers around the hilt.

"I have come from the Kingdom of Airyglyph," Albel began the traditional words, "Following in the path forged by the first King of Airyglyph. I desire to enter a pact with the air dragons. If there are any who would consider themselves my equal, let them come forth and challenge me."

There was more noise again as the air dragons seemed to be conferring about something before one stepped forward from the crowd, arching its neck and flapping its wings, sleek black metallic hide reflecting the glow of the cavern. It cried out its challenge, warning Albel to dodge as it rushed forward, letting loose a gust of flame where Albel had been standing.

This battle would be different than the ones up until now – the goal was not to kill or to grievously injure the dragon – rather, this was a battle of dominance and his goal was to make the creature submit to his power.

This air dragon was miles away from the ones he had fought on the mountain, and the differences were in so much more than size. There was a level of intelligence that at times he almost thought outstripped his own – it predicted his moves, set traps, used the terrain and laid strategies that Albel had trouble even beginning to grasp. He was operating on pure reflex, trying to stay one step ahead but inevitably feeling like he was being led. The speed alone of the dragon had him struggling to keep up, to dodge the attacks and wait for the moment where he could find a hole in its defenses.

The battle was not without cost, and it was only after a deep gash on his chest that continued to bleed sluggishly, a heavy bruise on his thigh and a number of shallow slashes that he managed to subdue the beast, taking a flying leap to land on the dragon's back just in front of its wing joints, pressing the point of his blade against the base of its neck.

The dragon whooshed out a sigh and relaxed, lowering its body. Axel leapt off and onto the ground and strode over to where the creature had laid its head on the ground in submission.

_Was that it?_ Albel thought to himself, still panting heavily from his exertions. He really had had no reason to be nervous, if that was the case.

It was then that the air dragon raised its head once more, bringing its strangely glowing green eyes to meet Albel's own, bringing Albel to his knees with an impact that had to be physical.

It didn't _hurt_, per se, but it felt like something was wrong, like he was going to be sick but wasn't quite able to vomit, like he had broken a bone but was so doped up on painkillers and couldn't feel anything but a sort of pressure – but he _knew_ the pain had to be there, somewhere.

Then there was this _other _thing, it was inside his head and _looking_ at him, it felt like he was being scrutinized from all sides and he was without a weapon, naked, he couldn't run away and he couldn't fight back. His heartbeat began to race and that feeling that he thought he had banished returned: fear.

His sword dropped from slack, sweaty fingers and his throat was parched from the burning air that he was taking in in shaky gasps, the gasps morphing into rasping.

Albel covered his ears and clawed against the sides of his head but it didn't keep the presence out, there was no noise in it at all – oh God it was silent and it was just _watching_ him, it didn't talk at all it only probed deeper, looking at things that Albel _didn't want it to fucking see_, things it had _no right_ to look at, things that even Albel didn't want to look at –

It _saw_ his fear, _saw_ how he was trembling even when he smirked, _saw _how he wanted to shame his father and disobey the king, _saw _how he was different from the other soldiers of Airyglyph, how he was on the outside, _why _he was on the outside fuck it wasn't because of everyone else it was because of – and it _saw _all the places where something was missing from Albel, something wasn't _right _and he wasn't _whole _he wasn't healthy or normal or any of the words that really didn't describe what he wasn't, there were so many things that he _wasn't_ – he wasn't clear-headed kind loyal brave strong he _wasn't his father – _and they were just watching, just _watching_ why didn't they say something the motherfuckers, tell him what was wrong with him, tell him what they so obviously thought –

Then he began to hear himself whimpering and he hated it, he hated this thing that was taking over him and he wanted it out – _stop looking at me stop looking at me I don't want you to __**see**__ get out of my HEAD – _

And then as suddenly as it had come it was gone and the dragon rose to its full height, throwing its head up and letting loose a roar that shook the entire cavern and all the other dragons joined in, open mouths pointing at the ceiling and then slowly, slowly lowering, some of the dragons began to stomp their feet in an offbeat pattern –

_What?_ On his knees, something that could feel like wetness on his cheeks, in Albel's confusion he registered some movement at the far end of the cavern, whatever noise the people might have made overridden by the growing roar of the dragons, and someone pressing past the wings and claws, running towards him, it was his father and he was yelling something that Albel couldn't hear, there was an expression on his face –

Terror.

There was only one thought. _I – failed?_

Albel was thrown to the floor, flat on his back as his father collided with him the instant the flames started to pour forth from the jaws of the dragons. He was in an awkward position, having been bowled over from kneeling and his calves were tucked underneath him. Albel recognized dimly before Glou's hands moved to protect the sides of his son's face that Glou's dragon, the king's dragon and the others were joining in the blast. His right arm was pinned between their bodies and he didn't even think to struggle until the screaming started.

Glou's screaming.

It didn't last very long.

It was after his father's screaming stopped that Albel started and the pain in his left arm started, shit it was on fire and he was slamming it against the stone repeatedly, beating it bloody trying to make the fire stop but that didn't even matter because his father had stopped screaming and Albel was inhaling the stench of burning flesh and he gagged but there was nothing in his stomach to reject. It was so heavy, his father was a dead weight oh God a dead weight a _dead_ weight he couldn't open his eyes against the heat to see and it was hot, hot all over, his skin everywhere was starting to dry and crack. It was hard to find even the breath to scream through the smoke but Albel did it anyway, descending into a painful coughing fit that ran its way up into screaming again – he knew his face was covered in tears but he didn't care, didn't even think about it. He wasn't sure if he was saying anything or not between the screams, all he knew was that the pressing flames seemed to go on and on and he passed out before it was over.


	14. Hate

I wiki-ed my ass off on burns, heat stroke and dehydration. Wikipedia never lies! ...Not about that, anyway.

If it isn't clear: The stone floor of the lava caves is normally even hotter than a sidewalk at the peak of summer. The supernatural heat of dragon flame made it hotter. Thus, the owies on Albel's back.

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 14: Hate**

When Albel woke he thought he was still in the cave, his entire body hot but his left arm oddly numb.

He opened his eyes to see white pillow. He was lying face-down on a plain, white-sheeted bed, completely naked with nothing covering him. The room was empty save for the bed and a small desk stacked with clean cloths and a basin of water as well as a few other tools that Albel figured a healer might use. Said healer was standing on his left side, dabbing something on his arm.

There were burns on his sides and on his back, but his front and right arm were almost completely unscathed, only a bit red and slightly sore. The back of his head ached particularly, and he reached his right hand back to feel the scabs that had formed there, the hair there completely burnt away where the rest had merely been singed.

Albel shot to his knees and immediately regretted it, the lightheadedness that followed the movement nearly making him collapse on the bed again. It took him a moment of sitting there to clear his head.

It was then that Albel looked at the arm, really looked at it. His smallest finger and the one next to it were gone and the entire back of his hand was black. He couldn't feel any pain from that part at all, nor could he move his fingers or his wrist. The outer side of his arm was blackened and painless, weeping something disgusting and dark, but the inner part was blistered all over, almost white, and the entire underside ached. Smelly yellow salve was coated liberally over the entire thing and the healer was reaching into a jar on the desk for more.

For a while everything was fuzzy, disconnected. He wasn't quite sure how he had gotten there – then it fell together and Albel snapped.

"Get – the fuck – _out!_" Albel swung his good arm around, grabbing the woman by her collar and slamming his feet down onto the floor, walking her backwards out the door and slamming her outside before sliding the lock shut. "And stay out, bitch!"

He stood there for a while, leaning against the door and listening to the steps of the woman running down the hall, supposedly to call her superior. Albel sneered at nobody.

Just being upright made him feel dizzy, but sitting down hurt too much. He satisfied himself with continuing to lean against the door, trying to avoid looking at his left arm. Somehow he was cold and hot at the same time, the stone floors freezing his feet and the cold air biting at his skin but the burns heating him unbearably.

Soon enough he heard another set of steps and someone was banging on the door, demanding to be let in, telling him that he was severely injured and that they only wanted to help him, blah, blah, blah. Albel didn't give a shit.

"Fuck off!" Albel banged the door with his right fist before staggering back toward the bed, leaning heavily against it with his right arm, feeling the cold metal burn against his knees.

"Shit..." he willed himself not to cry but started anyway, shuddering and gasping and hating himself for it.

He sank to his knees and stayed there for a long time, listening distantly to the sounds of various people banging on the door and demanding to be let in. At one point he pulled down the thinnest sheet from the bed and pulled it gingerly around his raw and tender body as he leaned his cheek against the bed, just concentrating on trying to breathe without sobbing.

After he had finally calmed himself down, he got to his feet, restless. The pounding on the door had finally stopped. He began to pace, the concentration on the movement giving his mind some kind of outlet.

"This is wrong." Albel's voice sounded broken even to himself. "This is just so fucking _wrong!_" In a sudden burst of anger Albel stepped over to the desk and pulled the basin down, spilling the water all over himself and the floor. He swung his arm across the tabletop, pushing everything to the ground and then toppling the whole table but still it wasn't enough. He ripped the lone tapestry from its hooks and watched it sit at his feet. He wanted to fucking _break _something.

It was hard, it hurt and he felt dizzy before, during and after but he somehow managed to drag the futon off the bed and then flip over the frame.

It didn't make him any better, it only made him feel tired and childish.

"This isn't right!" Albel screamed it at the ceiling but the stone didn't give him anything back, not even a weak echo. His throat was scorched raw and it hurt to make any noise but it hurt more not to. "_Fuck!_" He slammed his right arm into the wall in a mimicry of what his left had done _then_ and let loose a string of inarticulate curses at the wall as if he could blame the rock for everything that had happened, the curses covering the words that he was physically incapable of uttering – _It should have been me I want to die I want to die I want to die I want to die – _

But even as he wanted it he couldn't, knew that he _never _could, couldn't shame his father's name any more than he already had, couldn't make himself out to be any more of a coward than he already was, could never go into whatever the hell happened after he died knowing that his father would turn his back on him.

Everything hurt, hurt so much that the only thing that was holding him down was the pain in his body. His head hurt and eventually he stumbled back to his previous position, picking the sheet up from the ground and kneeling on the floor when the dizziness got to be too much and his vision started to fuzz. His left arm lay slack and aching at his side; he couldn't bring himself to touch it and it hurt to move anyway.

Albel didn't know how long he was there or if he fell asleep or not, his mind a muddle and his vision blurring in and out. It might have been hours or days; it felt like weeks. He thought he might have cried again at one point but he felt no tears on his face and all that he produced was a few pathetic whimpering noises.

Albel didn't even react when they broke the door down, didn't move until a hand touched his shoulder and a voice that he might have recognized said something to him.

Energy shot through him again and he slapped the contact away with his good hand. "Fuck off and get out!" He barked.

"Albel –" The man circled to his front and grasped Albel's shoulders, trying to look into the boy's eyes.

Albel swatted the hands away again and got to his feet. "I told you to get out!" He dropped the sheet and grasped Woltar as he had the nurse, trying to drag the older man away – but his strength was gone and he let go, instead opting to throw a weak punch at the man's face. Woltar caught the fist without even trying. "You – senile old fart –" Albel tried to rush him but could only stumble and fall against the man. "Don't look at me, please, don't look at me..." The sounds that came out of his throat disgusted him in their desperation, and Albel realized that he was _begging_.

"Don't be so weak." There was no venom in the old man's voice, only pity.

"It doesn't even matter anymore." Silence.

"...Do you want the king to see you like this?"

Albel closed his eyes and was ashamed.


	15. Choose the Nightmare

YOU NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD FINISH THIS, DID YOU. But here we are, wut.

It's been so long since I first started this fic, though, so my style has most likely changed a lot. Reading through some of my old work – including this – has made me realize how much my writing has changed. For the better, I hope? But if this last chapter seems really different, that's why.

Anyway, I'd like to thank all my readers for putting up with my absolute bullshit updating. I hope the finish ties it all off for those people who were waiting so damn long...

**Blood Stigma**

**Chapter 15: Choose the Nightmare**

Maybe it was because of his illness and not anything else, but Albel had a hard time remembering the few months following his father's death – or rather, his father's murder. He probably remembered it as worse than it really was – he hadn't really done much of anything except lie in bed and pace around his room for the first couple of weeks.

The burns on Albel's back ached constantly, keeping him awake most of the night. After three nights of less than two hours of sleep the healer started giving him sedatives. After a week or so Albel could sleep again, but the new sort of sleep he got was nothing like the thick and dreamless honey that the healer had forced him to pour down his own throat. He dreamed in sharp-edged reality, fire and heat dominating his sleep to the point where he was hot even in the highest, draftiest towers of the castle. He longed for the dead sleep that he got from the healers, but no matter what kind of threats Albel threw at them they refused to give him any more.

"It's too strong," the chief healer admonished him. "You ride the line between sedative and overdose. Even if the King were to demand it, I wouldn't give you a drop."

And so Albel rode the other extreme, denying himself sleep. Being exhausted was better than waking up screaming, anyway. It slowed his healing abominably, but it wasn't like Albel was keen on getting healed up quickly so he could return to the sword.

He saw Vox in the hallways sometimes, and Albel would find himself on the receiving end of a look that was halfway between smug triumph and condescending pity. Vox had everything he wanted, now – with both father and son kicked out of the line of Captain, Vox was promoted almost immediately.

Albel knew he should have been pissed off, should have been furious at the bastard for taking what wasn't his (not like it was Albel's either, he should've known from day one he didn't deserve that), taking what belonged _rightfully_ to Glou, hell, Vox would never be half the man or the captain or the soldier that Glou had been – but Albel just couldn't bring himself to care. Even without the sedatives to blur everything, the world seemed white-edged and distant. By the time winter finally rolled around, Albel's senses were as muffled and cold as the snow that blanketed the city and surrounding mountains. It was fine that way, really; better cold than hot.

When the snows began, the healers suggested he go outside into the snow to numb the burning. It was the first suggestion from those stuck-up do-gooders that he actually felt like taking, and so he did. He brought his sword with him almost as an afterthought – it wasn't like he was actually going to use it (he wasn't even sure he wanted to look at the steel ever again, look at the blade flash against the light like his father's eyes had)... but the weight was familiar, comfortable to him. He felt it at his side and didn't need to draw it.

The mountains were freezing this time of year, but Albel didn't dress nearly well enough for it. He had always been good at shrugging off the cold, the type who would work up a sweat and run fast enough that the snow couldn't touch him. He had a different way of taking the cold, now – absorbing it, feeling it, not fighting it. It felt good against the skin that burned day and night, and he imagined as he trudged through thigh-high snow that as he plowed through the white it would envelop him completely, taking away all the hot and painful things that he couldn't go back and fix and didn't know how to change.

Albel would deny to anyone who asked later that he had been walking halfway into suicide. He wasn't like that; he didn't cop out. Only the weak ran away like that, their slow and deep trail in the snow ending when they collapsed from lack of sleep, burning wounds, and numbing cold.

He woke to a sharp pain in his left arm that had nothing to do with burning. A mountain creature, hunched over on its four legs in a bundle of mangy fur, had sunk its teeth into his dead arm. Albel had been assumed as carrion.

Albel was not a corpse. Not yet.

It took an extra tug to drag his sword from its sheath, the blood of dragons and cave monsters still lingering on the slightly-rusted blade – but Albel didn't notice that; he was too busy rending the creature's head off. He pried the monster's clenched jaw off of his arm (it was hard to feel it, by this point, his arm was fucked up so badly anyway that any extra pain didn't make it much worse) with the tip of his sword just in time to take his blade to the next creature that leaped at him.

Shit, there was a whole pack of them. Drawn by hunger and the scent of blood, perhaps they would feed on the corpses of their comrades.

Albel's left arm hung useless by his side – he didn't need it. His right arm and his sword were enough to rip through everything that came at him. He smelled the blood just as keenly as these monsters did, really – they smelled it and were called, called to a fight or a meal (the two were the same, really, both satisfying a different sort of hunger) with nothing more than instinct guiding them.

It was instinct, all instinct for him – thought and emotion were wiped out in the visceral need to survive. His strength was in his arm, his blade, and the cries that emerged from his throat (better than any noise he had ever made; this time, he was an animal), all of it combining to give birth to a child of glorious slaughter.

Was _this_ what he had been afraid of, all this time? Afraid of letting go, afraid of dropping all his inhibitions and getting _exactly_ what the fuck he wanted?

He started to laugh, halfway through it all, covered in the blood of the monsters (none of them ran, no, they were born for the kill. There would be no cowards; it was kill or be killed) he had slain. It was hilarious, really, all the shit he'd kept down for his father's sake, always trying to please, trying to _aspire – _but he wasn't Glou, he wasn't a man at all really. He was the vision that the Crimson Scourge had shown to him, a creature of rage and violence; he'd just spent too damn long trying to pretend otherwise. Battle was where he had always been happy, soaked in blood and adrenaline – rank? Duty? Tradition? Those were the things his father had valued, not the things that were for Albel.

When everything around him was dead and Albel remained the sole victor, everything bled away from him save the essence, he knew what it meant to be alive.

xxx

The king would eventually give him some pity scraps: a rank as the captain of the Black Brigade, the joke of the Airyglyphan military (everyone knew all the power was in the Dragon Brigade, and Nox looked down his snotty little nose at him. The bastard could suck it; Albel didn't want that position, or any position). Albel took it for what it was: trash. But it meant he could fight, and that was the important thing.

Now that Glou was no longer here to look over his shoulder, to judge, to _preside_, Albel could do as he pleased. He took great pleasure in doing as he pleased – he rode the line of insubordination with the King, flouted his power and his body in his clothing and grew his hair to pointlessly impractical lengths because he could. The only remaining sign of what he used to be was the metal claw shell he wore over his shame.

But it wouldn't be a shame any longer; it would be a strength. Albel had no want or need for shame.

At the summit of a battle, the subordinates that feared him (and all of them did; Albel reveled in it) whispered amongst themselves about their terror of a commander. They called him cruel, they called him fearsome, and most importantly they called him _wicked._

Albel rather liked that word.

When it came down to the bone, everything he'd built his life on until now was gone, burned in the ashes of his childhood. He had one fucking thing left: the strength in his arm and the blade in his hand. That was all he needed.


End file.
